Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Why isn't Joachim mentioned in Jesus' genealogy?

July 26th, Feast
of Sts. Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

As
we look at the two genealogies of Christ given in the Scriptures (Matthew 1:1ff
and Luke 3:23), we might wonder why it is that St. Joachim is not mentioned as
an ancestor of Jesus. It is no surprise that St. Anne would not be mentioned
(since few women are), but we ought to be a bit alarmed at the lack of St.
Joachim – since, he is the closest male blood-relative of our Savior.

Some
– thinking themselves wise – may reply too quickly: “Well, of course Joachim
isn’t mentioned! The genealogies are traced not through Mary, but through
Joseph. Hence, since Joachim is Jesus’ ancestor through Mary, it is obvious
that he wouldn’t be listed in the genealogy through Joseph!” Such persons are
quite ignorant of the great diversity of Catholic opinion on this question.

In
fact, many of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church – as well as the best of
the biblical scholars (we refer especially to Fr. Cornelius a’ Lapide) – have maintained
that the genealogy given in Luke is the natural genealogy through Mary, while
that in Matthew is the legal (and regal) genealogy through Joseph.

“How
can this be?,” some will cry, “The Bible clearly states that the genealogies
are both through Joseph – first as ‘son of Jacob’ (in Matthew), then as ‘son of
Heli’ (in Luke).” Pointing our readers to our
previous article on Mary’s genealogy, we turn now to a careful study of
where Joachim lies hidden in the text of St. Luke’s Gospel.

An apparent contradiction:
Is Joseph the son of Jacob or of Heli?

Matthew
tells us that Jacob begot Joseph, but
Luke states that Joseph was son of Heli
– how are we to reconcile this apparent contradiction? There are many ways.

Many
of the Fathers maintained that Jacob and Heli were brothers and that, after
Heli died childless (or, at least, without any sons), Jacob took Heli’s widow
for his wife. Of her was born St. Joseph. Hence, according to the flesh, Joseph
would be the son of Jacob only; but, according to legal right of inheritance,
Joseph would be the son of Heli also. This explanation is certainly plausible,
and enjoys the favor of many scholastic doctors as well (including St. Thomas
Aquinas).

There
are, perhaps, other ways to explain this passage – nearly any interpretation
will suffice, so long as we maintain the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture and
avoid attributing a direct contradiction to the divinely-inspired word of God.

Mary’s lineage as traced
through Heli

Many
of the Fathers of the Church – followed also by the scholastic Doctors – have sought
to present the genealogy given by Luke as the lineage not of Joseph, but of
Mary. Invoking the above interpretation (by which Heli was the brother of Jacob
who was the natural father of Joseph), they join to it an additional intricacy:
Heli is simply another name for Joachim.

If
Heli is Joachim, then we may presume that Joachim died without any sons. Joachim’s
widow (presumably, a second wife other than St. Anne) would have married Jacob
and bore him St. Joseph.

Conversely
(without adopting the theory of a blood relation between Heli and Jacob), we
may follow the opinion of other scholars who maintained that Jacob (Joseph’s father)
had died young and that Joseph became a quasi-adopted son of Heli/Joachim
through his marriage to the Virgin – for this reason, then, Joseph is called son of Heli.

Whatever
the intricate details, the central claim of this theory is that Joachim was
called Heli and that this “nick-name” would have been common knowledge to those
for whom St. Luke was writing. This opinion is said to have been held by St.
Jerome, and is defended with great vigor by Fr. Cornelius a’ Lapide. It was a common opinion that enjoyed the favor of many scholars from at least the 1400s up through the early
1900s.

Linguistic study: Heli and
Joachim

We argue that Heli and Joachim are linguistically related, such that it would
be very natural for a single man to go by these two names. Joachim seems to be
a variant form of Eliacim, which is abbreviated as Eli, a variant of Heli.
Hence, though the two names may at first appear quite different, there is a
great linguistic similarity between Heli and Joachim.

In
any case, there are many persons in the New Testament who are called by
multiple names: Nathanael is called Bartholomew, Thomas is called Didymus,
Cleophas is called both Clepas and Alphaeus (though this last is more
debatable), Salome is called Mary (her full name being Mary Salome), et c.

Mathan, the common
grandfather of Joseph (son of Jacob) and the Virgin Mary (daughter of Joachim,
called Heli)

[from the great, Fr.
Cornelius a’ Lapide, commenting on Luke 3:23]

As was supposed, the son of Joseph, which
was (here, and before
each of the following names the Arabic puts in “the son”) of Heli, which was of Mathat. From this passage Porphyry and Julian
the Apostate accused Luke of being incorrect, because Joseph was not the son of
Heli, but of Jacob, as S. Matthew says (ch. i.); and because S. Luke gives the
other progenitors of Joseph and Heli names entirely different from those given
them by S. Matthew.

Besides, Jesus
was not the son of Joseph, but born of the Virgin Mary.

The solution
given by some to this difficulty is that Joseph was by nature the son of Jacob,
but by law the son of Heli. By the old law (Deut. xxv. 5) a surviving brother
had to raise up seed to his dead brother, and the brother who had died
childless was held to be the legal father of these sons. Now Jesca, says
Euthymius, married Mathat, and by him had Heli, then she married Mathan, and by
him had Jacob. Heli died without issue, and his brother Jacob married his wife
in accordance with the law, and Joseph was his son by her, being, therefore,
naturally the son of Jacob, but legally of Heli. So Justinus, S. Jerome,
Eusebius, Nazianzen, and S. Ambrose explain it. But, on the other hand, Heli
and Jacob were only uterine brothers, and the law on the subject of raising up
seed to a brother only applies to full brothers, sons of the same father; for
they alone kept the name and heritage of the father. Besides, the introduction
of Jesca is beside the point. For though her sons, Heli and Jacob, be connected
through her, yet they would have no connection through Mathat and Mathan and
the rest of their ancestors up to David.

This,
therefore, has nothing to do with the pedigree of the Blessed Virgin and
Christ, in so far as showing Jesus to be of the seed of David according to the
flesh is concerned. For if Jesus be descended from Jesca and Mathat, He could
not be also descended from Jesca and Mathan; how, then, is He set down as the
descendant of both Mathan and Mathat?

My opinion is
that in the time of Christ it was very well known that Mathan was the common
grandfather of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin; and that Jacob, the father of
Joseph, and Heli, or Joachim, the father of the Blessed Virgin, were full
brothers - as Francis Lucas holds - or rather, that Jacob was the brother of S.
Anne, the wife of Heli, or Joachim, and mother of the Blessed Virgin; hence the
genealogy of one is the genealogy of the other. For the Blessed Virgin was
descended, through her mother, from Jacob, Mathan, and Solomon, and, through
her father, Joachim or Heli, from Mathat and Nathan.

So S. Matthew
gives the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin through her mother S. Anne, while S.
Luke gives it through her father Heli, or Joachim, so that Christ may be shown
to be descended of the seed of David in both ways.

There is no
other better way than this of reconciling the genealogies given by SS. Matthew
and Luke. Moreover, it is the common opinion of S. Augustine, Denis the Carthusian,
Cajetan, Jansenius, and other doctors whom Suarez quotes (pt. iii., quæst.
xxvii. a. 1, disp. 3, sect. 2) that S. Luke traces the genealogy of Christ
through Heli, or Joachim, the father of the Blessed Virgin. Hence it must
follow that S. Matthew’s genealogy is traced through S. Anne, and that she was
the daughter of Mathan; for otherwise all her ancestors, whom S. Matthew
recounts, belong only to Joseph, and not to the Blessed Virgin and Christ.

S. Matthew then
traces Christ’s descent through His father Joseph, S. Luke through His mother,
the Blessed Virgin; both lines are united in David, but after him separate
through his two sons Solomon and Nathan. And again these two lines of Nathan
and of Solomon unite in S. Anne, the daughter of Mathan, and sister of Jacob,
Joseph’s father.

That is an excellent post over at the Sacred Page. John Bergsma (and co.) is doing great work over there!

See also his two recent posts on Cornelius a' Lapide:http://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/07/cornelius-lapide-flemish-catholic.htmlhttp://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/07/cornelius-lapide-flemish-catholic_12.html

Wow, thank you for posting this very thoughtful reflection on Sts. Joachim and Anne. How though does this reconcile the discrepancy that Matthew only lists 13 generations where he states it should be 14? There are some who say that from the Aramaic Peshitta and linguistic studies that the Joseph Matthew mentions as the "husband" of Mary should read father or head of household which would make it 14 generations.

Remember though, Mary's Levitical genealogical ties (i.e., Elizabeth being the cousin of Mary). Aaron's daughters could marry outside the tribe, but not his sons (i.e., Mary wouldn't be related to Elizabeth via Joachim) and his sons (aka Zachary) could only marry Levitical women (ie, Elizabeth couldn't have "hopped over" from David's family). Someone in the Levitical family tree had to be the feminine link of both Elizabeth and Mary and then either that same woman or another, had to marry outside of her ancestral tribe (Aaron/Levi) and into David's. I always thought it was Anne, but I suppose it could be Mathan's wife. I just wonder how far back is reasonable given Mary and Elizabeth's familiarity with one another.